<p>Can somebody please tell me how some people have 1 one more first authorships in bench research by the time they apply to med school?</p>
<p>Do these people fund their own labs, hypnotize their lab mentors, or get SURFs (do they have a lot of 1st authorships?)?</p>
<p>Also, I don't want to sound greedy or anything (the path to a doctor is expensive!), but is there any monetary incentive for first authorships?</p>
<p>It really takes a lot of luck. I've heard of people working at a lab for 2 years and not get publishable results. There are also people who get pubs for just a summer's worth of work. That's the way it is with research. Sometimes, you can work really hard at something but just not get results worth publishing. But this doesn't mean that you didn't get anything out of it or that you didn't learn anything. </p>
<p>Some labs also publish more than others. Some labs are willing to publish less significant results in smaller journals as opposed to saving their results for a more substantial paper in a more significant journal. Personally, how much a lab published wasn't a factor for me. As long as I got my own research project and it was in a subject I was interested in, then I was fine. If I get a paper out of it, it would be a bonus.</p>
<p>I doubt it only has to do with chance or luck. There must be some strategies that can help you greatly increase your chance of publishing as a first author. I wonder what they are.</p>
<p>The strategy is to look up previous publications of the PI and see how often he publishes. I've been in labs that publish once every 2-3 years. I've also been in labs that publish a couple of times a year. Some labs like to publish even when they don't have anything substantial. </p>
<p>If your first concern is how to get published with the least amount of work, then just do what I said above. Personally, I find publication hollow and empty when you haven't earned it. I've been told by multiple interviewers how disappointed they are when they find an applicant can't even speak intelligibly about research they had published. Most likely this is because they came into a lab, spent 2 months cleaning up a project, put their name as 4th author or something, and got a publication.</p>
<p>Notice that very little of this actually depends on the student. Most research fellowsI know work hard (they're willing to work nights/weekends). But they don't design the experiments or anything (the PI does that) so publication is really not an indicator of effort or knowledge or intelligence. It is pretty much dependent on the lab and on your luck in obtaining results. In my lab, I'm in charge of knocking out amino acids one by one and then seeing the change in the protein. The protein is approx. 2500 amino acids big. I could conceivably knock out amino acid after amino acid after amino acid without it affecting the protein. Or on my second try, I could find the critical amino acid that controls the regulatory site of the protein and voila! a publication.</p>
<p>Well! Having published a few first authored and 2nd /3rd authored papers in preclinical and clinical, I will put in my 2 cents here.</p>
<p>In my experience, I found out that your ability to get first authorship on papers tends to be directly proportional to the degree of your mentor's security. One can literally live in a lab and produce large amount of results and still have the 'top Postdoc' or the 'mentor' take all credit while you end of up with an obscure 3rd authorship. </p>
<p>Conversely, you might be lucky to end up with a really psychologically and financially (grant) secure mentor who actually let's you take the credit you deserve and prefers being in the shadows himself. </p>
<p>I have experienced both. It's pretty tricky to figure them out.</p>
<p>Therefore, it helps to have a mentor who has been in research long enough to have produced considerable amount of papers without being an eminent KOL in the field. These mentors tend to be happy to give you the credit you deserve. If you work for an rising newbee prof, most likely, you will only get partial credit.</p>
<p>Scientists or MDs who have earned their grey, are pretty well aware that 'first authorship' is not everything it may appear to be. </p>
<p>I think getting your name in papers, irrespective of the order matters much more. Understand your research thoroughly.....be so well prepared with background pubmed research that you ought to be able to defend your project as well as you would your dissertation! That's what interviewers look for. The spark and the enthusiasm with which you discuss your research, innovative ideas you bring forth, and your passion for science!</p>
<p>Don't get stressed out over the order in which your name appears.</p>
<p>First authorships only matter when you are applying to grants or to secure academic research positions in educational institutions.</p>
<p>ok this question is somewhat off-topic...</p>
<p>But when you say "your own" project, does this mean an independent project (one in which you came up with the idea, designed the study, ran the experiments, and analyzed the data yourself)? Or would it still be considered your own project if someone else in the lab came up with the idea, but you were the primary person who worked on it (like ran all the experiments and stuff, with guidance from someone in the lab)?</p>
<p>And could either of these result in a first authorship?</p>
<p>Look, you're not going to be designing the experiments. You may add little nuances or slight changes but the basic experiment will be designed by your PI. He is the one to secure the funding and he is the one to dictate how that money will be spent. No student does "independent" research in biology. This isn't the high school science fair where all the materials you'll need can be found in the kitchen. This is real research and real research cost money. </p>
<p>"Your own project" means that you do ALL the work from start to finish. In my lab, everyone has their own projects and while we try to help each other out (the other post-bac may let me borrow her gel or something and we take turns making common solutions), we are not obligated to.</p>
<p>The PI will get his name on any paper we publish but it's not ambiguous who'll be first author.</p>
<p>Well actually last summer I worked with a PhD student who was in the middle of his dissertation. Based on what he was doing with his thesis, I came up with my own, smaller project. So basically I created the idea/designed the experiment and worked with him to fine-tune it and everything. Then I ran the study myself (and went to him every step of the way to make sure I was going about everything correctly). I mean, it was an ecological project... not nearly as complicated as a biology project, but I guess it IS possible to do an independent project, though judging from your post, not very common.</p>
<p>Whose equipment did you use?</p>
<p>my project was pretty low budget, but I mostly used the lab's materials and then paid for whatever else I needed</p>
<p>you can't get first authorship like any old intership. it takes a HUGE time committment (usually a whole year off after graduating) and luck (getting into the right lab). you have to be very active in the lab (meaning you can't just run gels and centrifuge for hours a day; you need to be actively discussing the experiment with the PI).</p>
<p>I would argue with the supposition that you cannot design your own project. Within the confines of my PI's overarching interests in certain proteins, I designed my own project involving these proteins. I check in once a week and he gives me a little guidance, but for the most part I'm on my own. And, I do get to operate the equipment i need including a TEM, x-ray diffractor, and various other machines.</p>